Caravan News
BENGALURU — In the maiden budget of the Congress-JDS coalition government in Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy has announced farm loan waiver of Rs34,000 crore, giving relief to lakhs of farmers across the state.
“I propose to waive farm loans up to Rs 34,000 crore, with Rs 2 lakh per farmer family,” Kumaraswamy said in the Assembly while presenting his maiden state budget for fiscal 2018-19 on Thursday.
“I have decided to waive all defaulted crop loans of farmers up to 31 Dec 2017 in the first stage. Farmers who repaid the loan within time, as an encouragement to the non-defaulting farmers, I have decided to credit the repaid loan amount or Rs 25000 whichever is less,” said Kumaraswamy.
Chief Minister Kumaraswamy had promised farm loan waiver before the elections. The JD(S), in its election manifesto, had promised to write off all categories of loans of farmers which would result in the financial hit of Rs 53,000 crore on the exchequer.
The budget proposes to tax the people heavily by increasing the petrol fare by Rs 1.14 per litre and diesel by Rs 1.12 per litre.
“I also propose to increase excise duty on Indian made foreign liquor by 4 per cent to raise additional revenue for meeting the budget expenditure,” said Kumaraswamy, who heads a coalition government of his Janata Dal-Secular and the Congress.
The Chief Minister has also proposed to increase power tariff by 20 paise per unit.
Promising to continue the flagship programmes of the previous Congress government, Kumaraswamy told the legislators that the overall size of the budget would be Rs 2,13,734 crore.
(With inputs from IANS)
